


Just Like That

by jonasnightingale



Series: Heavy Accents & Swollen Ankles [14]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Amanda being soft and open, Angst and Feels, F/M, Gen, I don't know, I wrote this in like an hour, Jealous Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., Like Emotionally, Tumblr Prompt, cooking with Carisi, i just miss rollisi, kat being sassy, no beta we die like men, otp: I just want her to be happy, otp: sure you won't get a sandwich with me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-22 04:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30033285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonasnightingale/pseuds/jonasnightingale
Summary: Started from a Tumblr prompt: "Just imagine Amaro coming back and realising Amanda deeply fell in love with Carisi in the meantime."Rehashing the past and reframing the future? Not sure how to summary this one yet. But Rollisi endgame.
Relationships: Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. & Amanda Rollins, Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. & Jesse Rollins, Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr./Amanda Rollins, Nick Amaro/Amanda Rollins
Series: Heavy Accents & Swollen Ankles [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595524
Comments: 20
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “Just like that,  
> something shifts  
> and you know something  
> and he knows something  
> but nobody knows for sure. You have something to trade and you're not sorry.”  
> ― Yrsa Daley-Ward, The Terrible: A Storyteller's Memoir

Nick’s standing in her kitchen like he never left, fitting straight back into her world as if everything has not changed. He’s got two beers open on the bench and as she approaches from the girls room he throws the question into the air between them; “So you and Carisi huh?” It’s mostly curious, only a little bit judgemental, but Amanda feels her shoulders tense all the same. Nick juts his head towards the fridge where there’s a photo of Sonny at the Zoo, Billie asleep in the carrier on his chest and Jesse beaming from her perch on his shoulders. She’s aware suddenly of the other suggestions around the apartment - the squad photo in the lounge room, taken at Kat’s softball tournament, Carisi’s arm slung casually around her back; the Italian storybooks in the girls room; the cookbooks under the bench that so clearly do not belong to her. Amanda scrunches her face in what she hopes is a convincing dismissal, letting the usual reply fall from her tongue. “It’s not like that..” Nick raises an eyebrow and she watches as his eyes dart to the noticeboard against the wall, where there’s one of Jesse’s drawings pinned up - four blonde avatars and a dog, one stick figure in a dress with a gun, one with a tie and suitcase. She cringes and then forces a flippant “The girls love him.” She picks up her beer and takes a swig, mentally adjusting to Nick’s shape against the stove instead of Carisi’s. For a long moment, he just watches her, and she’s struck by how much they have changed, how much _everything_ has changed in the intervening years. The next words out of his mouth are testament to just that.

“Do _you_?” She flips her hair and throws him a side glance and smile that is both flirty and offhand.  
“He’s my partner, Nick.” Nick cocks his head and approaches in measured steps. When he replies it’s a tone so familiar to her ears, the timbre of all their debates.  
“Well, no, he’s technically _not_ any more.”  
“Come on, you know what it’s like…” His being here was a testament to that, his coming down for Noah’s birthday, his monthly phone calls with Munch - partners are for life.   
“I do.” He’s close, up in her space like old times, and her breath catches at the warmth radiating off him. She’d forgotten that about him, how warm he always was, like her own personal space heater. His voice is quieter, “He your partner like I was your partner?”  
She wishes there wasn’t a quaver of sadness, maybe regret that coloured the word when she breathed it into the closing space between them; “No.”

She clings tightly to the past as they come together, dragging her nails roughly down his back so insistently that it’s raised and red as he slips a shirt over his shoulders in the morning. He leaves his mark too, a hickey she had been too far gone to really think about as his mouth worked along her neck. He smirks at her through his toothbrush in the bathroom mirror as she tries in vain to conceal the bruise. With a high collar and her hair down, she throws him a scowl so sharp he raises his hands in defence with a laugh. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Uh, yeah, I saw him yesterday.” She’s distracted, knee-deep in surveillance footage as Liv and Finn talk about Nick’s being in town.  
“Oh? How’s he doing?” The voice isn’t one she expects and she spins sharply to see Sonny standing beside the pair, briefcase still in hand. Her mind flicks unhelpfully to last night - _do you love him? -_ and she has to mentally shake herself, flipping a short smile at the ADA.   
“Yeah he’s good. Loving life on the West-coast, being with Zara and Gil..” She trails off with a smile and turns back to the laptop, fingers subconsciously brushing against the top button keeping her collar high. Kat has turned towards the conversation now and when she interjects, it takes all Amanda’s willpower to not shoot a sharp glare her way.   
“Weren’t you on lates yesterday?”   
“Yeah, he came over for dinner.” Liv’s got that look on, one eyebrow raised, mouth twisted into a wry smile and Amanda’s skin prickles with discomfort.   
“You cooked? I thought we liked this guy, not wanted him dead.” Kat’s tone is ribbing and it forces a low chuckle from Finn, even as Carisi paints a smile across his lips that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.  
“Ha Ha.” She can’t push the words ‘ _he cooked’_ past her lips, can already imagine the way Carisi’s left eye will tense thinking about someone else moving around her kitchen, using the wrong oil on the pan or scrubbing the casserole dish too hard - it was more his kitchen than hers these days. 

* * *

He doesn’t want it to impact him. So what if Nick was in town; the squads chasing after an abducted ten year old and their chief suspect is the son of a sitting judge - they’ve gotta bigger issues to deal with than Amaro casually reappearing into their lives. 

But he feels small, in the way he only really does when Nick comes back. Uncertain, ungainly. He’s second guessing himself, feels an extra step removed from the team. It’s ridiculous and he chastises himself in good measure, but the feeling doesn’t quite dissipate. It’s like he’s cast back all those years prior, the green detective they didn’t really want, months of faux-machismo and eagerness and tidings in the form of baked goods. Months of interrupting Rollins and Amaro, or always feeling like he was anyway. 

They used to look at him like he was a hindrance, and Carisi notes that little has changed the few times he’s seen Nick since.

He knows that it’s seperate, what he and Amanda have. That it’s got nothing to do with Amaro. That their friendship is real and lasting and stubborn. They’ve been side by side through so much, weathered so many storms; and even when they’ve grown apart they’ve never strayed too far from reach. That’s gotta mean something.

But sometimes, at his worst moments, he can’t help but think himself just a substitute, a body that stepped into shoes for someone else. He wonders if - if Nick had stayed - any of this would have happened. Would he have been there for the girls births, beamed bright and overwhelmed as Amanda tried to downplay asking him to be Godfather? Would she have fallen into his chest so easily in the wake of her exhaustion, be familiar with his colleagues from the frequent check-ins at Hogan Place? Spaghetti nights and trips to the zoo and watching cheesy reality TV on her couch - would it have all happened regardless?

Or was it all just a fluke of timing and access. 

* * *

Night is settling around the building and Amanda is exhausted. Hell the whole team is. They’ve spent the past twelve hours in a frantic search for a missing girl and there’s no way she’s going to make it home for the girls bedtime. And she’s sore, both from the nights exertions and the boneheaded decision to wear new shoes today. Of all days. The one bright spot is that they found the girl, almost ice cold in a puddle of blood, but still breathing. She’s not yet conscious, may not ever be with the swelling against her skull, and 1PP is already breathing down their necks. Amanda shoves her laptop aside and stalks to the coffee machine, groaning when she finds it empty and violently setting a new pot to brew. She sweeps her hair into a messy bun and runs a tired hand down her face, trying to remember if she has eaten since the slice of toast this morning. 

Carisi and Kat are at the briefing table, exchanging and debunking theories in a quick verbal back and forth. A corner of Amanda’s mouth twitches in mirth as she considers how similar the two are, with their gestures and their sprawled postures, their enthusiasm and zest. She bumps her hip against the table beside them, feeling both sets of eyes turn to meet her. Carisi glances at her with a thin smile and turns back towards Kat before his brain catches up and he does a double take, his gaze dropping to linger on her collarbone. Shit. Amanda feels herself flush bright red, her ears burning, and quickly darts a hand to her shirt - unbuttoned earlier in the day - to pull the neck closed and slip the top button back into place.   
Kat smirks at her with an amused raise of her left eyebrow, “Too late.” Carisi struggles to look away and when he does there’s a new line between his eyes, a few loaded beats before he manages to regain his train of thought. 


	3. Chapter 3

She’s sitting at the table watching him as he salts the water and rinses the vegetables. Something that had been sitting uncomfortably in her gut clicks back into place at the way his hands reach so surely for the tools, the way he knows exactly where everything lives.

There’s a straightness to his spine that she lingers on, a tension in his jaw. He’s not humming tonight, or telling tales with his long limbs flailing around them. Jesse and Billie are in the lounge watching Frozen for approximately the millionth time and the sounds of their singing and giggles intersperse the uncharacteristic silence. Her eyes trace the square of his shoulders, the swoop of his hair - how many hours has she spent watching him like this?

“It was weird, the other night, having someone else in the kitchen.”  
Carisi makes a closed mouth sound, “Mnmm.” She’s familiar with it, with the way his eyes are probably also wide and brows raised, lips likely pursed. She knows what it means - that there are things he is trying to not say, words that are churning through his mind that he won’t voice. And she’s right - what he’s thinking is an unkind ‘ _oh just the kitchen huh?’  
_ “Sometimes it feels like all those years - with Nick and Munch - were yesterday ya know? But then Nick comes in like all surprised that you’re… here, that we’re so close.” She swings the wineglass in her hand in a lazy circle on its base, watches the liquid in it swish around. “I guess I just forget sometimes, how different things were back then.” His voice has an edge to it when he replies with a vague, “Yeah.” 

“I guess what I’m tryin’ to say Carisi, is thank you. I didn’t give you much reason to stick around but you do it anyway. And I appreciate that.”  
His shoulders drop slightly and she hears the deep sigh he lets out before her name, “Rollins..”  
“I mean it Sonny.” A small chuckle breaks through her lips, “I mean look at you, you’re pissed and you’re still here cookin’ dinner.”  
There’s a beat where he doesn’t deny that he’s upset, “Yeah well I promised Jesse so.”  
“I know.”  
“Amaro doesn’t get to make me into the bad guy here. I love the girls and I made a promise so here I am. And also he owes me a new frypan - what did he use a steel scraper on that thing??”  
She says it as a statement of fact, no hesitation, just a blatant truth - “We love you back.” 

Carisi freezes mid-chop. With the knife on a 60 degree angle, partially piercing the capsicum beneath the blade. He takes a deep breath and she watches as he slowly puts down the knife, as his hand reaches to turn off the stovetop under the pot of water. His head drops slightly forward, fingers gripping the edge of the bench and back remaining turned. He’s radiating tension in a way so out of sorts with his usual languid posture and she wants to smooth a hand down his spine, work her fingers through the knots of his shoulders. 

He’s dreamt it, those words on her tongue. Always a part of a world where he didn’t have to leave at the end of the night, where they didn’t linger awkwardly in doorways. He’d honestly thought he was over it, content with what they were, what they had. And it had been him lately knocking back her offers for drinks, not returning the touch when she leans into his side. Things were simpler with that door closed and out of mind. But then Nick. Then that goddamn hickey on her throat and this stupid ruined pan, and Carisi is lost to some embarrassing male ego he can’t control. What the hell did Amaro - with his penchant for saving broken women and his loosely held anger - have to offer? He imagines Nick in this house, the girls learning Spanish instead of Italian, the girls knowing the sound of barely restrained arguments through their door, and he bristles.

With his body still turned into the bench, the words that slip out are a shock to them both - “Did you want Jesse to be Nick’s?”  
“What?”  
“When you told me - that you were pregnant - you said ‘ _not that it’s any of your business but it’s not Nicks_ ’… did you want it to be?”  
“Carisi, what the hell kinda question is that?!” She moves from her slumped position to her feet, filling with an indignant anger that splutters out quickly when his face turns to appraise her. She thought she knew his expressions pretty well by now, but this? Well this look she has never seen. She tries to relax her teeth as she pushes out an answer, “I mean, it would’ve been easier in some ways. Less lonely. Not necessarily with Nick but just, his whole big family; Zara, Gil, his Ma, cousins…” she shakes her head slightly, returning her gaze to the salt and pepper of his crown, “But no. I don’t wish Jesse were his.” She watches the back of Carisi’s head move in a nod.  
“So you don’t wish he’d stayed? Been the one cooking your meals and crashing on your couch for new years?”  
She closes the distance between them in quick steps, restraint giving in to raise her hand to his shoulder. Her fingers wrap gently but securely and apply a bit of pressure to get him to face her. He turns slowly and she makes sure to look directly in his eyes as she replies with a tone that leaves no room for brokering, a firm “No.” Her eyes flick back and forth across his face, trying to read the pained expression there. She thinks of the Sonny Carisi she knew then, how little of him she really saw behind the moustache and foolhardy gusto. His gaze breaks away from hers, looks to the floor.  
“Hmm.” One shoulder raises in a casual shrug and his voice comes between them with an attempt at forced nonchalance, “Guess sometimes I just feel like the poor-mans Amaro. He left and you got lumped with me.”  
Her hand raises to his cheek on instinct, a soft caress that pulls his attention back to her. She shakes her head, brow furrowed as she tries to find something to say, something to convince him of his own significance in their little world. 

“Look, Nick’s great. And yeah he’s a great dad, I’m not saying he wouldn’t… _I’m saying_ , I can’t imagine anyone else in this picture Carisi. You’re part of the fabric. Nick and I - what we had - it was…” she changes track, “It wasn’t what this is.”  
The hand that isn’t against his jaw has worked it’s way to his chest to rest against his ribcage. It’s more sustained contact than they’re used to but Amanda can’t bear the thought of any more space between them, is trying to push her sincerity through her skin into his. His arms are still propped against the bench but the frustration has slowly ebbed from his posture, his expression - leaving only an exhausted confusion in its wake. He flicks his eyes to hers and the mix of apprehension and weariness there tugs uncomfortably at her heart. The question comes out of him quietly, a barely conscious exhalation perhaps long overdue - “What is this?”

It catches her off-guard. The way he’s looking at her is so lost, so unchecked in this vulnerability. It reminds her of that night, their almost, the way he had closed his eyes on the rejection, lines unconsciously gathering in his forehead even as he forced a smile and wished her a goodnight. She doesn’t know the answer - has _never_ known the answer, and that’s the whole damn problem isn’t it. Smart, funny, she enjoys his company, he’s good with her kids… But there’s a lot to be lost. And any time she thinks ‘ _well maybe, maybe this could happen_ ’, one of them inevitably swerves. She wants more from him, true, but she doesn’t want to take it, doesn’t want to keep imposing on him. Because the fact of the matter is that for all she wants, she knows that he can do better, and she’s not gonna be the one always dragging him back down. 

But his skin against her palm feels so nice, and the blue eyes that have pulled her through these past five years are so clear. She considers parroting her words from their biggest fight, ‘ _you tell me_ ’, but she’s not sure she’s ready to hear his response, whatever it may be. She likes this space they’re in, likes its ambiguity, that she can fall asleep against his chest and drop by his office to check in but doesn’t have to worry about choosing between her personal and professional lives, doesn’t have to worry about him waking up one day and realising she can’t give him the future he wants. 

His head is bent towards her, brow a deep ridge between his eyes. Their eyes are seared together, both searching briskly for something that neither can name. For just a moment, Amanda thinks _maybe_ , and her fingers curl more securely into the fabric of his shirt, feel his sharp intake of breathbeneath her knuckles. 

And then Frannie lets out a bark - deep and echoing - and they’re both spinning to the doorway, rushing towards the commotion. There’s a collective sigh of relief when they reach the loungeroom to see Jesse and Billie both fine, Jesse with a guilty smile to her face and Frannie with sticks stuck like antlers to her head with tape. They exchange an exasperated amused glance before Amanda moves forward to release the poor dog and Carisi retreats to the kitchen.

When she walks back in he’s back to the task at hand, the water is returned to boil in its pot and his hands move as they chop the vegetables. It’s as if nothing happened. He doesn’t turn to face her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel not quite in my usual Rollisi swing of things but maybe that's just the exhaustion and aversion to proofing lol. That said I know where this story is going and I lowkey love it but yeah look I might re-write the whole thing at a later date when I remember how to words again. *shrugs*
> 
> And yes, Nick gets more storytime, not Amaro-bashing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have been drunk when I wrote this.

“Huh, guess he’s not the DA’s favourite.” Nick huffs as he looks around the shoebox that doubles as Carisi’s office. Amanda shoots him a sharp look and Nick smirks out an apology. It’s weird to be here, her and Nick, in Carisi’s space. Amanda lingers near the door, keeping one eye on the way Nick circles the office, the other on the blinds waiting for Carisi to stroll in. 

Nick’s fingers wrap around the edge of the framed photo on Carisi’s desk and Amanda feels her eyes roll in a preemptive action. “Just… don’t” she tells him and his lips curl into a tight grin. He hums out a noise as his eyes linger on the picture, on the softness in her eyes, on the quiet declaration of this photo alone on the desk. 

Carisi strides into the office, his briefcase clutched tightly beside him. He hesitates in the doorway, weight moving from one leg to the other as his eyes track between Rollins, Nick, and the photoframe. “Uh - hello?” He moves towards the desk, dropping the briefcase onto the chair and turning towards them. 

It’s been a weird few weeks, with the change of dynamics in light of border closures, flights being grounded. He’d thought, that first morning when he’d walked into the office to see Nick seated firmly behind a desk and heard Liv talk about “on loan until airports reopen”, that it was going to be awful. And yeah, in someways it has been. Carisi has spent the past two weeks trying to not linger on every look between Nick and Amanda, second-guessing every small touch she places on his arms. It’s not exactly a good time, but - despite the new tension in Carisi’s shoulders - it’s all been going surprisingly well. 

Nick slots right back into the squad; his presence having a placating effect on Liv amongst the worlds’ chaos, the shorthand between Rollins and himself returning with ease. Amaro puts all the time and patience he didn’t grant Carisi years ago into bolstering Kat. Despite her reticence (which only Fin knows the source of), he supports her ideas, throws credit her way, and makes the effort to impart wisdom and advice. 

But every now and then Amanda will catch Nick’s form in her periphery and think it’s Mike, or see the irked look Kat watches them with, and remember that Barba is no longer a steady thread in their lives, that Dodds and Tucker are dead, that the world has turned to a dumpster fire around them. 

Carisi hasn’t cooked for them since that night - buried under paperwork, or checking in on Mia, or some other excuse he sites as he barely meets her eye. And so yeah, Nick’s been the body in her kitchen, the warm hand on her back. And that’s surprisingly good too. He’s great with the girls, and she doesn’t feel suffocated by the silence of her bedroom when he’s snoring beside her. But she knows what it is - between her and Nick - and what it’s not. It’s comfort and it’s a familiar form to fall against and it’s someone who knows her but isn’t asking too much. But it’s not something to build a life on. It’s not heavy accents and babies drool dried on coat lapels and knowing head tilts. 

It’s easy, and it’s safe, and it’s some amalgamation of the spark they always shared and this new place in their lives where they’re both less volatile, a little more constrained. But she opens her door to the wrong colour eyes night after night and moments buried between that past and this present float in her subconscious to haunt her. When Nick leans waiting at her door it’s not with vulnerable eyes and bowed head and “ _you’re a helluva partner_ ”, and when his hand is on her wrist it’s not with a humble smile and “ _I’m not going anywhere”,_ and when she bites her tongue on words the expression that greets her isn’t soft and imploring _“you can tell me, it’s okay_ ”. 

Her eyes track the bags under Carisi’s eyes, and she tries to not think about what he’d said, about feeling the poor mans Amaro. She looks at Nick sat at her table with her girls and finds the very notion that she had once had to tell people Jesse wasn’t his almost absurd. If anything, Jesse is the spitting image of a Carisi, with her wide stance and her slouched posture and her probing eyes, her blonde hair and bubbling enthusiasm. 

She listens in from the sidelines as the girl facetimes hims, proudly shows off all the things he’s missed in these intervening weeks. And Amanda feels her heart stutter in her chest at Carisi’s “ _Miss you too Jess, and your sister. I’ll see you guys real soon_.” Nick’s expression has morphed slowly from an amused disbelief to something more probing in the days since he first arrived, a quiet analysis of the now empty spaces left in her home. He mentions, from time to time, that Kat seems to hold some animosity against him and Amanda laughs as she tells him, “That’s just Kat. She’s sceptical.”

But the truth is it’s not that. The reality is that Kat can’t stomach the casual way Nick’s hand scrapes against Amanda’s hip, the increasingly frazzled state of their ADA. She and Sonny have never really seen eye to eye but Kat’s always - well, almost always - appreciated that there was something between the two old partners. That whatever else was happening, Carisi and Rollins were a solid unit. She despises Nick on principal. For getting in the way. For being one more hurdle in the infinitely fraught space between these two humans. And if she finds herself siding with Carisi more, standing closer to him in the squad room, launching into his opinions with faux-conviction instead of vague distaste, well that’s just how it is. And really Sonny is too distracted to notice beyond the occasional sustained glance and furrowed brow. 

The days tick by, Nick learns more about Carisi than he did the entire time they worked together. He’s regaled regularly with stories from the girls about Uncle Sonny, gets to know his thoughts on the Bachelor from the buzz of Amanda’s phone on the couch between them. There’s a photo in Amanda’s room, the squad around a maternity bed, Jesse content in Carisi’s arms as they lean towards Amanda and the swaddled baby in her arms - Nick finds his eyes drawn to it often. There’s something in that photo, something he sees every time Amanda tracks Carisi’s back to the elevator, every time Carisi’s gaze holds too long on Rollins. Family. Love. 


End file.
